Humana's Physician Finder Plus

Paper Prototype

Start with the disclaimer page:

Given that the disclaimer page must be there, there is no other place in the design flow that feels logical or natural for it. By moving it to the front, the disclaimer is satisfied and the process flow of searching for providers is not interrupted.

Clarify what input is needed:

The nature of the search engine is to return an exact answer. Many users unknowingly limited their search criteria by entering too much information. By limiting the the number of fields for the user to input, it keeps the search more broadly based, thus a higher success of returning matched data.

The proposed search page is reduced to searching for a provider by name to simply asking the provider's name and the state. By moving the mileage search to a different box separated by the word "OR" makes it clear that the choice is to search by name OR by address, but NOT BOTH.

Put all search options together:

The current "refine search" has filters available to the user AFTER the initial results are displayed. This is not where users expect more search options; criteria is expected to be offered one time, in one place, before the results are returned. By eliminating "refine search" and moving the filtering functions to the front of the search, it puts all the users's choices together in one spot, and makes users define the search only once.

Make it easy to see what plans are accepted:

The Humana PFP search results page (not shown) does not show which plans the providers participate in; users must click one additional time on the providers name to see what plans they participate in. This is confusing to the user because once they see the name displayed, the natural tendency is to think "There he is, he's in my network..." but this is not accurate. Without clicking on the provider, you don't know what plan he's in.

By moving the participating plans to the results page (shown), it becomes clearer that the provider may or maynot participate in all plans.

Keep the information related to the individual doctor:

The addition of a category called "services" would allow users to see which imaging centers perform mammograms.

Not all information has a place on the results page. Other information like office hours and other locations may be accessed by clicking on the providers name.